This is my first try at writing in quite some time. I am a little rusty. To introduce myself, I'll say that I have been shaped by various things. My father taught me to love the outdoors, my mother taught me to love learning. I suppose this could also be titled: Where I am "from". I was born in Oklahoma, moved then to Western Kansas, Texas, then the Ozarks where I lived for a good time. When we lived out west, my father instituted the tradition of going to Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. Camping and National Parks became all I thought of. Colorado called us back annually. I was naturally curious (pun apologies) and my mother facilitated my learning. I would come home with rocks, fossils, Horny Toads (as we called them), snake skins, and even Tarantulas. I always had a knife. I didn't quite appreciate how the wind blew most of the time in the Texas panhandle and western Kansas, it seemed to put a cramp in my curiosity. I would go inside and get bored. It wasn't 'til I moved to Southwest Missouri that I was free to explore without the wind harrying me. From then on I was daily investigating nature.
Well, one thing I have noticed upon moving out of the Ozarks is that there can be changes in habitat that are not always immediately apparent. For instance, when I moved from southwest Missouri, to Louisburg, Kansas, near the Kansas City metro, just barely within the state of Kansas, I was like: "Hmmm. I still see limestone road cuts, I still see Walnut, Oak, Hickory, Virginia Creeper, Poison Ivy, Sumac. There are hills in Kansas (yes, really!). Not that different." I noticed that Redbuds were still here in the spring, which prompted me to look for Dogwoods. Nope. No Dogwoods. What's with these Cottonwood trees everywhere? They remind me of Palo Duro Canyon, in Texas, the Cimarron and Canadian Rivers. That was the West, in my mind. Why were birders so excited to see Pileated Woodpeckers? Okay, maybe I have some things to learn about this place. I took a spring wildflower walk led by Dr. Ken O'Dell at the Overland Park Arboretum. Turns out an understory Oak tree grows here. It's fairly uncommon and doesn't get very tall at all. Can't remember the name. Ken's walk reminded me of common species I had heard from walks in the Ozarks, at the Springfield Nature Center and other places. But the differences are what intrigued me. I began to see a line drawn, a change of habitat. At the time it was only vaguely East versus West. Each species in a habitat tells a story. This story is what the Hedge tree tells of the land it is in.
Hedge is rampant here in Kansas. Dust-bowl era medicine, Bois D'Arc was the remedy applied to a land afflicted with drought, among other things. The tree is also called Osage Orange and is recognized by many for the softball-sized hedge apples that it drops in fall. Bois D'Arc is the tree of choice for firewood, as it burns hot. People in the Kansas City area smoke meat with it quite often, bringing pork to perfection. While doing tree work for Parks and Recreation in Overland Park, I became a hater of Hedge and of Locust also. Putting branches into a wood-chipper is one thing, having the tree drag you toward the wood chipper with all its thorns tearing your flesh is quite another.
There is Hedge in the Ozarks, but it becomes scarce south of Springfield. Native people used hedge for bows. Today, Black Widow Bow Company makes longbows and recurve alike with Hedge out of Nixa, Missouri. When freshly cut, Hedge looks the color of lemons, a light yellow. With sunlight and time, the wood gets darker and darker until it appears dark brown, almost the shade of Walnut heartwood. The wood is durable, and the quintessential fence posts. Some Hedge posts are very old and so sun-bleached they look gray, like driftwood. There will usually be various slow growing lichens on the posts, the sort of thing usually seen on older things such as rocks or ancient cedars reminiscent of Ansel Adams' images of the West.
My Grandfather, near Okema, Oklahoma. This is the spirit of the West.
The West. Having been born in Oklahoma, raised in western Kansas and the Texas Panhandle, I was never one to make a distinction of what was the West or the East. Things were all mucked up in the middle of the United States. During the Great Depression, erosion and drought plagued farmers in the Great Plains. In order to abate that erosion, to make wind breaks, Hedge trees were planted. This practice did not start with the depression, it was going on in the late 1800s. However, the United States Government stepped up to plant these trees, paying men to do so up until the 1950s. Hedge reminds me of the Steinbeck book The Grapes of Wrath, I see Fonda's face from the movie, walking down a dusty road. I think of the Osage Indians, who prized the wood for making bows. The tree is not unlike the Acacias of Africa. But mostly, Hedge reminds me that I live on the cusp of the West, what was once frontier. This was also on the frontier of modern conservation efforts. For me it is the transitional avatar between the East and the West of America and that of the birth of conservation efforts in the Midwest. Some think of the arch in St. Louis as the gateway to the West. I don't. I live two miles from the state line between Kansas and Missouri. For hundreds of miles in either direction there is Hedge, to me a better symbol of the transition from East to West. Osage Orange has been planted purposefully, an act intended to make the land better. It reminds me that I was born in the Indian Territory taken by the Sooners. Hedge is ubiquitous there. I was raised in a land of constant wind, blizzards, tornadoes, drought and heat. Western Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas is dry most of the year and when you see trees, it brightens your day and you know water is near. Few trees thrive in the Great Plains. Hedge has. What does Hedge tell me? Welcome to the West.
